Show fades in on the Manhattan skyline and we hear Dana summoning the first team to the studio. In Dan and Casey's office, Natalie is trying to hustle the boys to the desk, but Casey's on the phone and Dan's just standing there. Casey's berating some poor assistant athletic director for not being straight with him, and you'd think this was going to be an important plot, but it turns out to be nothing. Casey tells the guy on the phone he has to get his notes, so he gets up from his desk and leaves because notes are, well, not sure where they would be if they're not at his desk. Natalie asks Danny about 50 times in different permutations and combinations if he's nervous. We learn that there's an Esquire piece coming out on the guys, and Natalie says that since Dan hasn't seen an advance copy, he should be nervous, as if Natalie knows anything about anything. Dan says he's nervous about the fact that he has a stalker, one of the CSC morning aerobics girls. Yes, because a woman who hosts an aerobics show would really dig Dan's skinny ass. Dan and Natalie try to figure out her name. Sandy? Randy? Mandy? Oh, ha ha! Those rhyme! And it was even funnier because they said it really fast! They decide the stalker's name is Madeleine, and then Casey bellows at Natalie, so she heads into the newsroom, where she and Casey talk about what seems significant in terms of this episode's plot but actually isn't. Natalie seems to have a good idea that it's unimportant, since she only wants to talk to Dan about his stalker, which they do as they walk through the newsroom, at least until Casey all angrily tells Dan to let her go, but Natalie only says, "Casey!" and makes a gesture to let him know he has to be on the air soon.
Casey is now bartering with his source, offering to mention his student's name in connection with the Heisman trophy for the twelve weeks if he'll just "give me this one." And Casey's spotty ethical accountability aside, what's somehow more annoying is that we don't find out what he's talking about. Dan starts waving his arms, trying to get Casey's attention, until Casey, all annoyed at being interrupted, says, "What!" and Dan says, "Natalie says my stalker's name is Mandy," except I thought they'd settled on Madeleine. At any rate, Casey doesn't know what the hell Dan's talking about. Kim appears, since Casey ordered Natalie to get her, and Casey tells Kim to work Ted Lewis, and we finally find out that it has something to do with a coach getting fired. Bobby Knight? Nah. Kim gets on the phone and uses this pouty voice and says, "Ted? You were in town and you didn't call me." I am gripped by this emotion I have never felt when it comes to Kim: annoyance. Oh my god, Kim is annoying me here, and her breasts are doing nothing to stop it. This is all new to me.
The Apology
Now, as Dan and Casey head to the studio, Dan says it's not as if he's not used to women being interested in him, but Casey says he has no idea what Dan's talking about. When they go into the control room, Dana makes a sarcastic comment about how lucky it is that the sports anchors are here since they're about to do a sports show. "Sarcasm, thy name is Dana," says Casey. Elliot comes in and says, "Toby Benes has a no-hitter in the seventh." So Dana says they'll tease it and go to it live in the ninth. Jeremy says they shouldn't tease it because it's bad luck. "Bad luck for the pitcher," says Dana. Jeremy says yes. "We don't work for the pitcher," says Dana. Score one for her. Jeremy says something about a dilemma, but Dana says she's okay with it.
The show goes live, and the boys tease the top stories. When they mention the no-hitter, Jeremy shoots this half-worried/half-admonishing look at Dana. They go to commercial, and Dan and Casey start talking about Dan's stalker again, and there's more Mandy/Sandy/Randy rhyming name stupidity that wasn't even in the general vicinity of funny the first time and is now grounds for justifiable homicide. Jeremy tells Dana that teasing the no-hitter was a tough call (even though it wasn't) and while he didn't agree with Dana's decision, he respects it. Dana gives Natalie this disbelieving look. Jeremy sure seems to have gotten over his nervousness pretty quickly. Elliot reports that Benes just lost the no-hitter. Jeremy takes Dana's hand and says sincerely, "Don't blame yourself." Commercials.
Casey is glued to his copy of Stuff, I mean, Esquire. Elliot walks by and tiredly asks how often Casey is going to read it. Casey claims he's "searching for nuance," which is an assertion undermined by the fact that I swear I saw his lips moving. Kim wants to know how much trouble Dan is in. Casey reveals that although he and Danny are close, he's not concerned about Dan so much as he's concerned about himself. This shocker stuns the entire newsroom into silence. The problem is that Dan is seen as the cool one, while Casey is, well, not. Dana shows up to talk to Casey, but before she can get a word in, Casey says, "There is a perception in the press, never more clear than in this article, that I'm not cool. Now, where do you think this perception comes from?" Dana, not missing a beat, says, "I think it comes from reality." Heh. She drags him into the meeting room as Elliot suggest to Kim, "It could be his haircut."
In the meeting room, Dana says, "So how much trouble is Dan going to be in?" Uh, why is Dana asking Casey this? Isn't she the boss? It's not Tony Danza, I know that. The big boss, Luther Sachs, has seen the article, so Casey anticipates "a certain degree of trouble." Dana asks, not angrily, if Isaac didn't ask Casey to keep an eye on Dan when the two of them are doing press. "We're working out some kinks in the system," he says. She tells Casey that there's a lawyer in the building with a guy from Standards and Practices. "We have Standards and Practices?" asks Casey. "It's a whole wing of the..." says Dana, but Casey interrupts her and says, "No, I mean, we have actual standards and practices?" Oh, it's a joke. I get it. I get jokes. Dana doesn't think Casey's all that serious. Casey outlines the situation for Dana and the audience: "He belongs to a fly-by-night organization that supports the legalization of marijuana. Is the network going to be happy about it? No. Is Sachs going to order someone to order someone to slap him on the knuckles? Probably."
Then of course Casey steers the issue back to his perceived non-coolness: "I am cool! I'm completely cool! Huh?" "You dress cool," concedes Dana, although I think by doing so, she is still saying he's not actually cool. Then she disses his haircut as they leave the meeting room. "Excuse me?" says Casey as he walks away.
"She says she thinks it's the haircut," says Natalie, waiting outside, doing her patented college-freshman-cross-armed-binder-clutch-to-chest thing with her clipboard. She tells Casey that Jeremy is cutting his first highlight package today, and she wants Casey to give him some pointers. She'd do it herself, except she's developing feelings for Jeremy and might just wind up servicing him in the editing room. Except it took her two hours to say it. Also, she didn't actually use the words "servicing him," but I'm paraphrasing here. They're in Casey and Dan's office by this time, and Casey agrees to help Jeremy out. Natalie gets up to leave as Dan comes in and Natalie says, "You'll be nice to him? It's his first time," and Casey, no stranger to being nice to guys their first time, says yes. Natalie then feels the need to explain her burgeoning Jeremy-servicing feelings to Dan until Casey barks at her and she scurries off.
Casey says, "speaking of feelings," that by the elevator that morning, Mandy the aerobics stalker seemed to be showing no interest in Dan whatsoever. "That's how the game is played," says Dan nonchalantly, which was kind of funny. "What time is your meeting?" asks Casey. "Right now," says Dan, who then parks himself on the couch, because making them wait for him is part of his "strategy." "Yeah, well, it sounds pretty sophisticated," says Casey. Casey then says they did the interview for that piece three months ago, so if Dan knew something like this was going to happen, he might have warned Casey. Dan says they completely missed the point and he had no idea they were going to completely miss the point three months in advance. Casey asks him what the point was. "The point was that any law that makes criminals out of fifteen million Americans is probably not such a good idea. The point was that drug abuse is not a criminal issue, it's a health issue." And also spending the money more wisely than on prosecuting a surfer in San Diego, et cetera. Casey agrees they missed the point, then: "Hey, can I change the subject a second?" Well, I wonder what topical detour Casey might make here. "What is up with me not being cool?" "What is up with that?" says Danny agreeably. "I love music! I have a great appreciation of music!" says Casey. "Dude, I've been in your car, you have the Starland Vocal Band singing 'Afternoon Delight,'" says Dan, except he sounds like that's a good song, and Casey of course can't tell Dan's playing with him. "That's right!" he says, pointing at Danny, then clarifies that he doesn't actually have the album, but it's on his Time Life "Sounds of the Seventies," like good thing the Esquire writer didn't have that piece of information. "Well, there you have it," says Dan. And when the laughter subsides, it's time to get serious. "How can I be cool again?" Casey asks Danny, and Danny contemplates Casey in some insipid version of My Fair Lady and says, "Well, first I'd have to disabuse you of your notion that you were ever cool before." So Casey laughingly tells him to go to his meeting.
Danny doesn't, though; he gets up and sits on a corner of his desk with his back to the door, so were anyone to walk in the office, Danny wouldn't immediately see them. Never seen this done on television before. Dan says he's just making them wait, but Casey figures Dan's making them mad. Isaac walks in; Danny doesn't see him. D'oh! Casey, spotting Isaac, says, "I think Isaac, specifically, is mad." Dan then blathers on about how Isaac "understands" him and is hip to Dan's "battle plan" and a whole lot of other nonsense until Casey tells Dan that Isaac is right behind him, and Dan, a lot less cocky, starts sucking up until Isaac tells him to get his "sorry ass" to the meeting. Dan scurries off. Casey, never one to wait for a more appropriate time and place to get his ego stroked, says, "Isaac, you think I'm cool, right?" Isaac just stares at him and says, "Do I look like I'm in the mood to do this right now?" and Casey says "no" and Isaac says, "Then let's assume I'm not," and leaves.
Isaac's office for the knuckle-slapping meeting. There are a couple of suits there. One is this tweedy balding guy, and the other is the guy who played gun-happy police officer Tackleberry in a series of films that are arguably the finest movies in cinematic history, Kryzystof Kieslowki's Trois Couleurs (Sars, could you double-check that for me? Thanks). ["Sorry -- too busy reading up on Julie Delpy's exquisite performance in French Vacation." -- Sars] Except that, in a Stallone-esque bid to look more respectable, Tackleberry has a goatee and glasses. Whatever, Tackleberry. The suits want to know who encouraged Danny to get involved in this group. Dan says it was his own idea. Tackleberry suggests that it was the flaky new English teacher, but Dan denies it. Tackleberry relates how, just the other day, he was walking by Dan and Casey's office and they were ripping pages out of their textbooks. The upshot of the meeting is that the suits want Dan to give up Mr. Keating and sign a paper saying it was all his fault, and Dan won't be fired. Danny won't sign, but his dad (did I mention Danny's parents are there? His dad is played by the dad from That '70s Show, the mean guy who says "ass" all the time) gets all mad and is all, "Sign it, Danny!" and Dan is practically crying, and Tackleberry says Luther Sachs is suggesting that Dan apologize on air but Dan isn't having it. And while I agree in principle with most of what Dan says here, he does get a bit annoying when he starts pompously spouting stuff like, "Actions are immoral, opinions are not," and even prefaces one of his statements with, "For those of us fortunate to be the subject of magazine articles..." Yeah, in Esquire, standard-bearer of world-changing ideas and debates. The magazine is all about deep thinking, as evidenced by its recent selection of Matthew Perry, Pierce Brosnan, and Shaquille O'Neal as Men of the Year for...what, exactly? None of them even write for MBTV or anything. I drifted off here, into my increasingly frequent daydream involving Destiny's Child. Yeah, that's right. I'll pay your bills. I'll pay your telephone bills. And your "automobills," whatever those may be.